


Rings

by eraharel



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drabble, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, It Gets Better, M/M, Nora (Mentioned) - Freeform, References to Depression, Shaun (Mentioned) - Freeform, This was an English assignment, Vignette, john stabs a guy, sole survivor is in love but he doesn't say it, the m/m is subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 15:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14696976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eraharel/pseuds/eraharel
Summary: Sawyer, the sole survivor of Vault 111, struggles to find a reason to move on. When he finally leaves the memories behind, he meets a few friends along the way, learns a lesson about the Commonwealth people, and sees a new hope for the future.





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these as an English assignment for school so pardon any mistakes and the like. It's written in vignette style, so all of the parts are like drabble length. So I would just click 'Entire Work' if I were you, to save time.

The bunker platform lurched to a stop at the top of its track. Pistons locking the elevator in place rattled the earth and the sound echoed through the quiet suburb. Ideally, more than one person would arrive on the surface after the rain of nuclear fallout ended. Families from past generations would rise up from the ground and see the world in error; they would strive to recreate and rebuild to prewar standards that their ninth great-grandparents had to leave behind. It would be hopeful, beautiful, and revolutionary. It was supposed to be these things.

  
In the quivering hands of the sole survivor was the ring of his fallen spouse, killed by a stranger in front of his very eyes. Perhaps it was the icebox he had just emerged from that hindered his ability to cry, his bodily functions had not yet thawed, but a sob forced itself from his dry throat anyways. With shaking legs, he took a step off the rusted elevator and collapsed. His body curled in on itself, knees and elbows bathing in the mud. The ring stayed in his tight fist.  
All three of them could have been standing on this platform together, today. They should be looking at each other, basking in the warm rays of the rising sun. Shaun would be in his arms, making noises of incomprehensible babble. Nora would be standing beside him, warm hand on his shoulder. She would be scared, but so, so brave as she took the first step off of the platform and took the first breath of crisp, morning air. The fantasy faded before his eyes and his face tightened and squeezed itself from the agony of the idea.

  
It felt like hours before he finally stood back up, pocketing the gold band. When his eyes met the landscape for the first time, it jolted him. The cleared hill which Vault 111 resided was now covered in a thick layer of grass, fresh and new. The trailers were covered in vines, hanging long in front of the doors and window to conceal the skeletons inside of them. Military vehicles were overturned, painted red with centuries of rust. He turned back towards the cliff that overlooked his neighborhood. Though it was partially secluded by huge trees, he could see the peeling walls of his neighbors’ houses. Metal plates were bent and rusted, some lay in the dirt or grass, completely removed from their posts. Once he realized that the roofs shouldn't be spread open like the tops of volcanoes, he threw himself down the hillside at a stumbling pace.

  
The view from the center of the street introduced a new sensation that shook his shoulders and made his hands freeze. Withholding the urge to vomit was a task not so easily accomplished as he let his feelings out next to the mailbox across from his house. He leaned his body against the box and ran his hands up his face and into his hair, pulling at it weakly. The quaint suburb was in ruins, with a majority of the homes collapsed in on themselves and debris strewn across the lawns. Doors were off their hinges and grass was unruly. Hidden in the tall grass were the remains of those who never made it to the vault. A new breed of flowers tangled themselves throughout their bones and tiny insects lived inside of them. Those were neighbors, his neighbors, and he could probably name them if he so wished. His body was shaking too violently to look closer.

  
Gathering his wits, he balanced himself on his shaking legs and moved towards his house. It looked just like the others. The inside was just as destroyed, and it lit up with the rising sun, accentuating the dust that moved around like gnats around trash. Soft rays of gold glinted off of the shards of glass that littered the ground. Light refractions were a spectacle. The walls decorated with shimmering orange and yellow triangles which moved when he walked over the glass. He was blind to its beauty.

  
Thoughts wouldn’t form when he passed the rooms that branched from the hallway. He only had one destination, Shaun’s room, where he hoped that somehow, in an act of someone’s god, his baby would be in its crib. In the place of Shaun were broken off arms from the mobile above. He took the little rocket and UFO and twisted them in his fingers. He could still hear “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and see the mobile spinning. It was spinning. The morning breeze blew through the busted window and shook the mobile, but there was no music.


	2. II.

It took days for him to leave his home. He had rearranged the furniture as he remembered, and the more dangerous debris was removed, but nothing could get nuclear fallout from vinyl wood. No matter how arranged the furniture was, there was no helping the permanent grey tint that everything had. The walls were filthy, the torn, maroon sofa was no longer its bright cherry red, and the polished wood furniture didn’t shine. The flags inside their cases were dead, glass shattered and old badges that used to mean something falling out. Ugly. It was all ugly; so much so that the entire house made the freshly picked flowers dull and wilt.

There was a decent stash of him and Nora’s favorite wine in the closet safe. It didn’t take long to remember the combination and find a bottle opener. With a bottle in hand, he walked around the house, as he did every half hour or so. His eyes passed over burnt picture frames and crispy photographs that had already been sorted twelve times. 

Catching himself staring at some of them for too long, he moved on and found himself outside, walking down the sidewalk and up the pathway that led to the vault. He pushed the gate open and passed by the skeletons and rust and found himself, what seemed a second later, halfway underground, platform rumbling underneath his weak legs. 

The vault wasn’t much. It was primarily a research center, which is why Sawyer, a man from before the bombs, was still alive 200 years later. They practiced and perfected cryogenics, leaving everyone who made it from the neighborhood in a glorified freezer, which eventually failed. There was mostly labs and then two freezer rooms, each with eight pods for eight people. No one knew that this was the intent of the haven, or that they were going to be part of it. 

He moved through the hallways with recognition and easily found the room he had escaped from. A chill escaped when the door slid open. It soaked into his skin and sent goose bumps up his arm. Despite the creeping dread, his eyes locked on Nora’s pod, which sat directly across from his. There was frost on the window which blurred the face that contained a bullet in the center of its forehead. With closed eyes, he opened the pod and death poured out, embraced him in a chill worse than the cryo-pods. When he opened his eyes, the demon was nowhere to be found, just a preserved woman who looked to be sleeping. 

The bottle of wine, empty to the last drop, was tossed into a corner. Glass spilled across the floor, but no one seemed to mind. Nora’s body was cold to the touch and her icy skin stuck to his warmth when he picked her up. Back up the elevator, he went, not daring to look his wife in the face. Her body was stuck in the last position she was in, crooked and difficult to hold. Once the light touched her, she was in the process of thawing. There was only so much time before she would be like any other corps and decomposition would set in. 

At the surface, he gently set her body on the soft grass and searched for a shovel. Her grave was set in the very center of the cliff, the same spot that Sawyer had collapsed in his first step outside. She would overlook the cliff, facing the site where the sun sets; it would be the clearest view of the arrival and departure of days. The most beautiful sight for the most deserving. 

She had no headstone or marker for her name, but flowers laid at the head. They were dull in comparison to the lush greenery.


	3. III.

There wasn’t much in his backpack: matches, bottles of water, other unnamed drinks, a change of clothes, and ammo for the pistol at his hip. He hadn’t gone far. The house was maybe a mile away by now, but it was far enough to feel the anxiety of a lost child in a theme park. In truth, it wasn’t really home anymore. It was too empty, too dark, too...much. It was better to stay away or else it swallow him whole.

It was the start of November and the sky was overcast. The only difference it had from most potentially rainy days in the past, the clouds had green hues that only darkened the heavier they were. Empty roads seemed especially deserted the longer he traveled them. There was a particularly long crack that ran in the very center of the road that led him to a destination unknown. Or, a destination entirely familiar, it turned out.

The Red Rocket Gas Station was a place visited enough times to count on the fingers of the entire state. It was in a similar state of decay as any other building, with thick vines hanging down like blankets. The red and chrome of the building was entirely toned out and there wasn’t a reflection bright enough to be a mirror anymore.

Pushing the vines aside, he had a look around at the interior of the building. The bar area had newspapers scattered around and stools overturned, the front desk had no register, and the shelves were a complete mess. Half of the products were on the floor or nonexistent, likely raided by people who might have survived. There were some canned goods on the ground, and it wouldn’t hurt to pack them up to take on the journey.

As he packed away a can of Cram™, there was a booming crash coming from the office in the back of the building. He nearly dropped the can as he fumbled for his gun. When he entered, he hadn’t heard anyone inside, but maybe they were just hiding. There wasn’t any need to resort to violence, so his grip was only half confident. As he rounded the corner with quiet, steady steps, a dark mass ran across the doorway, and then leaped from the room, jumping on the man and knocking him to the floor. The creature continued its rampage, jumping off of him and running around the shop, knocking over bottles and stools. It finally stopped with the sound of paws and nails scrambling across the tile and shook its body back and forth.

It was a dog.

When he peaked his eye out at the creature a sigh of relief struck him, and he huffed out a laugh. Clearing his throat, he reached a hand out to the dog to get a sniff.

“Hey there, big boy, what are you doing out here?”

The dog didn’t sniff for long before it began wagging its tail and approaching the downed man with an innate friendliness. It was a German Shepherd, big chested, with tall ears and a long tail that wouldn’t stop swinging back and forth. Wrapped around its neck was a red bandana, but no collar.

“Do you have a name,” he asked the dog. “My name is Sawyer. Wanna come with me, buddy?”

A long, wet lick soaked his right cheek with great enthusiasm.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

 

Sawyer used to have a dog, but it had run away some weeks before the world ended. He wasn’t really fond of that dog anyway; it was small and yappy, mostly for Nora’s entertainment. It was nothing like this big body of fur and muscle that this dog was, and it liked him more. The duo left the gas station, side by side. It wasn’t the same as having a human companion to talk to, but some time after walking in silence, Sawyer spoke to the dog like a friend. If not to fill the void, then to adjust his voice to talking again as it had grown ragged and rough in years of neglect.

Together they walked, and walked, and walked. Without anywhere to go, or any idea if there were hubs of people somewhere, he and his dog just walked. Through Concord, where they rested, and then onto the six-hour walk towards Boston. Once night fell, there was no choice but to take shelter in an abandoned house. There was no ceiling or floor in some areas, but there was a dirty old mattress upstairs. There was no use in being picky, so Sawyer threw down his backpack at the head of the bed, lied down, and for the first time, he went to bed with a warmth at his side.


	4. IV.

John Hancock is a quirky man. He has edges and a smirk, but his loyalty is unwavering. He’s a man who strolls down the marketplace in settlements, twirling his exaggerated hunting knife around one finger, other hand in his pocket. He flirts and jabs people with his pointy elbow when he makes a joke. John Hancock is honest and fair, and he wants everyone to find a home with or wherever home may be.

Sawyer liked to look at his face when they just sit around at camp. When there is nothing to talk about, when they’re just sitting on their cots, a fire toasting in front of them, and bottles between them, he likes to just look. Hancock doesn’t look like normal men. He had been born and raised in the Commonwealth. Most people who looked like him were those who weren’t able to live in the safety of the vaults and were exposed directly to the burst of radiation, long ago, when the bombs fell. His youth was a wild one, and it took time for him to reveal it. Instead of the radiation that cooked his flesh and extended his lifespan, it was radioactive, experimental drug use. Sawyer hates this story, but it was a very Hancock thing for Hancock to do, he realized. Instead of being a “smoothskin,” Hancock was a tight, pink and brown concoction of caramelized flesh with black eyes who never told where they were looking. His body was thin and bony but he was capable of plenty of things. People like Hancock are called “ghouls,” but he was the most normal person Sawyer had ever seen.

When they first met, Hancock was actively the mayor of a settlement called Goodneighbor, hidden off somewhere in downtown Boston. It was small and allowed any traveler, dealer, thief, or dog to enter, so long as there was no violence or discrimination. It was a fair town run by a fair man.

“New to Goodneighbor,” a straggler said, stopping Sawyer at the gate. “How about I offer you some...insurance.”

He had lit a cigarette as he spoke, looking the newcomer in the eyes. When he took a drag from his cigarette, he placed one hand on his pistol. That was how Sawyer knew it was a threat, and that was when the mayor of Goodneighbor, John Hancock, strolled over with a smirk on his face and his arms open to Finn.

“Come on, man, you know when they’re a first-timer, they’re a guest. Lay off the extortion crap.”

“What do you care, Hancock? Don’t let these newcomers walk all over you, or over us.”

Hancock moved with one foot in front of the other, slow and deliberately, mouth widening and he lifted his arms in a halfhearted shrug. “No trust for your mayor, Finn? Lemme tell you a little somethin’ somethin’.”

It was the first time anyone stabbed a person for Sawyer. It was quick, and Hancock clicked his tongue afterward while Finn lied at his feet.

“Breakin’ my heart over here, Finn.”

When the mayor was done gloating and he finally turned to the wide eyes on Sawyer’s face, his smile softened into something sweeter and genuine.

“You okay, brother?”

 

Sawyer likes to look at Hancock’s face when they’re sitting at camp. He sits back against rocks or trees and he gazes at how the campfire’s flame dances across the textures and dips of his skin. Sometimes, because he can’t tell if Hancock is looking back at him, he will see that same smile on the corner of his mouth and the smoothskin man grins at the ground.


	5. V.

A bullet whizzed past Sawyer’s face just before he looked from behind cover. His hands scrambled to push his ammo into his shotgun, fingers fumbling with the shells. His heartbeat was earth shaking, but he wasn't scared. Infiltrating raider-infested buildings and camps became a common hobby in recent months now that he had begun to explore more of the Commonwealth. In his journeys, he met settlers and wanderers, people looking for hope. It was usually simple people who asked him to do jobs for him or to clear out raider hoards so that they didn’t bother the community anymore. He always obliged, and within days, the land would be a little quieter than yesterday. 

Sometimes people asked for personal jobs to be fulfilled. Raiders loved to take things that weren’t theirs, so it became a job to take things back with twice the force. Valuables, money, food; easy things like this could be taken back for a small sum of money and a direction. Sawyer took pride in his ability to better other people’s lives, especially when it came to the more personal jobs he took, those were far more impactful to the poor wanderer.

A bullet ricocheted off of a pipe and nearly struck Sawyer in the shoulder. Hancock and Sawyer both looked at each other and laughed. They were both perched against sandbags at the far end of a hallway, reloading guns and confirming a plan as bullets rained at their backs. There were only so many shots left, and maybe five raiders unloading at the opposite end of the hall. Once they were ready, Sawyer stuck his fingers in his mouth and blew, the whistle echoing above the brief ceasefire while raiders reloaded as well. The pitter-patter of paws scratched at the wood floor and a scream rang out as a thump resounded through the air. Dogmeat growled as he ripped into the man, and that was the signal for the two men to stand up from cover. Hancock took the lead with his shotgun and ended the brief skirmish within seconds. 

When they were sure there was no one else, they three gathered around the bodies and began to rifle through their clothes. Some money and ammo was common loot, but they were looking for one thing. On the hand of the most heavily armored raider was an old diamond ring, just what they were searching for. Sawyer took out a cloth and placed the ring in it and stuffed it into a pocket for safe keeping. Tomorrow they would set out back to the farm that asked them to retrieve this ring. 

 

“Thank you so much, mister,” the little farm girl took the ring and turned it through her fingers with sad eyes. “My sister’s ring means a whole lot.”

“Kindness like this is hard to come by in these parts,” an older man said, crows feet deepening as he looked over at his family. “We don’t have much to repay you with, but please take this.”

The man handed Sawyer a bag that jingled when he took it. He turned it in his hand and shook his head, handing it back, “It’s not necessary. I just hope you have some peace of mind, now. That band of raiders won't bother you anymore.”

There was a pause as the farmer looked down at the small purse before nodding and putting it back into his pocket. He smiled gently and focused on the gold band on Sawyer’s finger. “You must also understand what it’s like to lose someone close to you.”

Sawyer raised his eyebrows and looked down at his own ring. He fiddled with it thoughtfully and nodded without looking up. 

Sure, he knew what it was like to lose someone close to him. He knew this feeling twice over. It had never left him, staying behind a wall of distractions and new experiences, only popping up when he least expected it to. In truth, it had been a while since he let the memories weigh on him as they once did. Instead of feeling a constant dread on his shoulders he now felt alive, bright-eyed, and hopeful, even if it is for only a moment a day. The spark is there. He knew there was something out there for him, now, but he has yet to find it. It will never be Nora, and there’s no telling if it will ever be his son, but he’s going to find it someday. He has the support of his new family; they will help him find what he’s looking for.

 

“Hey.”

Hancock was leaning against a tree, blowing smoke from a cigarette out his nose. Grabbing his attention was the young girl who still held her sister’s old ring. She fiddled with it nervously as she avoided the ghoulish man’s black eyes.

“You have the same ring as him,” she pointed to Sawyer, who still spoke with the girl’s mother and father. “He must mean a lot to you, like my sister, right?”

Hancock flashed his crooked grin and eyed the man standing a distance away. 

“Yeah, kid, something like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on my [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/eraharel/) and [Deviantart](https://eraharel.deviantart.com/) ;^)  
> I draw, I don't write. lmao


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